


Good Morning, Sister

by Wife_of_Bath



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Bisexual Honoria, Confessions, Don’t copy to another site, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Honoria isn't bad just intimidating, M/M, Misunderstandings, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post Jeeves and the Greasy Bird, heart to heart conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 05:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18934369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wife_of_Bath/pseuds/Wife_of_Bath
Summary: A few weeks before her wedding, Honoria runs into her favorite former fiancé.





	Good Morning, Sister

Honoria grabbed her hat as she headed out the door. “I’m going out, Mummy!”

“Do be careful, Honoria,” her mother called from the other room. Away from her mother’s keen gaze, Honoria rolled her eyes. She was always careful; Mummy just liked to fuss. Earlier, Honoria had announced she was going for a stroll while it was raining. Mummy put her foot down on that idea. The wedding was only a few weeks away. What if Honoria caught a cold? Honoria scoffed. As if a little rainfall would make her sick. She loved walking in the rain, the way the ground squelched under her feet, the gray haze it cast over everything, the constant pitter-patter of the raindrops. Blair liked it too. He said rainy days were some of his best, when everything was hushed and misty, and he could tap out 10,000 words on his typewriter before lunch.

London after a good, hard rain was different than the countryside surrounding Blair’s home. There, everything seemed more vibrant, fresher, the damp air cleansing even as it clung to their clothes. After a thundershower, Honoria and Blair liked to walk, her for the exercise, him because he said walking often helped him work out a difficult plot issue in his mind. He was usually quiet during these times, quiet for Blair, but a soft smile crossed his lips as he watched Honoria call out to the dogs dashing along the path. In London, the grays of the city just became grayer, sleeker, as the scent of petrol grew stronger. How anyone could voluntarily choose to live in a city, Honoria would never know. Short visits were more than sufficient for her.

Cities were more crowded too, everyone jostling about without watching where they were going. Without warning, Honoria collided into a man, nearly sending him sprawling onto the wet concrete. She was about to loudly reprimand him for his shortsightedness when she recognized a familiar face under his brown fedora.

“Bertie!” she cried, all annoyance melting away. Bertie Wooster was a strange fellow, strange but sweet. He was completely incompetent, scatter-brained and impulsive, yet he was so gentle and well-meaning that Honoria could not help but like him. He reminded Honoria of the alpacas she had once seen during her trip to South America. Dumb but terribly lovable. Bertie was also hopeless devoted to her to the point where Honoria thought that if push came to shove, she could be happy as his wife, provided she could make something of him before it was too late. Of all the men she had found herself engaged to, aside from Blair, Bertie was the best. Most were so odd and seemed to turn tail and run at the first opportunity. Only Bertie kept coming back. Even while things were brewing with Blair, Bertie had taken her out dining and dancing. There were times Honoria wished she could fall in love with him, if only so he could be happy.

Bertie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Honoria, old thing!” he stuttered. “What are you up to here?”

“On a walk. What about you?”

“Just out, really. I’m going to meet J-someone later, but until then I thought I might pop round to the Drones.”

“No, you’re not.” Honoria grinned. She never understood the appeal of a place like the Drones Club. Blair was not a member, considering it too idle and silly, so everything Honoria heard usually came from outside sources or overheard conversation. If Bertie and her cousin Hildebrand were any indication of its members, then everything Bertie’s Aunt Agatha had said about the place had to be true. Honoria did not understand how men could content themselves with lounging about the furniture, smoking, drinking, and playing inane games. A man’s brain would rot that way.

She slipped her arm through Bertie’s. He stiffened under her touch, but Honoria did not comment on it. “Come on. Let’s walk together.”

“All right.” There was an oddly shaky timbre in his voice.

“I say, Honoria, you are still engaged to that Eggleston chap, aren’t you?”

“Blair? Yes. The wedding is next month.”

“And you’re happy with him? Nothing hindering future wedded bliss?”

“Nothing, Bertie.” He seemed to relax a little. “But what about you?” she asked, nudging his shoulder with her own. “Are you happy with your fairy queen?” When Blair had told her the story, Honoria laughed and refused to believe it was true. It sounded so ridiculous, yet Blair had insisted.

Bertie shuddered. “No, that’s off. Actually, it never was on in the first place. Just a ruse-whatsit. I hired her to pretend to be engaged to me so nothing stood in the way of your accepting Eggleston’s proposal.”

“Whatever for?”

“Well because—because he’s the right man for you, Honoria. Course I barely know him, but he seems just the type for you.”

Honoria had nothing to say to that. How strange that Bertie would go to such lengths just to make sure Honoria was happy. The methods were convoluted, but that kind of sentiment was rare in a modern man. Briefly, she wondered why her parents had not encouraged her to accept Bertie’s affections. True, there had been a time when her parents would have collapsed in convulsive fits to see them walking together arm in arm. But later, they had come to like him very much, especially her father. Why, they had never said, but something had happened during their trip to Chuffnell Regis that made Daddy regard Bertie as an old, trusted friend. Despite this, they still did not suggest that Honoria marry him. She simply did not understand why.

“You are happy, aren’t you, Honoria?” Bertie asked again. Her sudden silence must have made him concerned.

“Very much, Bertie. You needn’t worry.”

Their path led them to a park not far from Bertie’s flat. Glistening raindrops clung to the leaves and grass. In the distance, a group of schoolchildren chased each other in a game of tag.

“Glad to hear it. I mean, if you’re happy with Eggleston, and the wedding is still on, I guess now I can tell you…” Honoria braced herself as Bertie took a deep breath. “I mean, since you’re set on walking to the altar, it’s as good a time as any. I’m not in love with you, Honoria. Never have been.”

Honoria stopped so suddenly that Bertie nearly tumbled headfirst into a pile of wet leaves. “What?”

“I’m not in love with—.”

“Stop,” Honoria interrupted. She frowned, shaking her head. This made no sense. Why was Bertie lying at a time like this? “But Oswald!”

“Was a mistake. Well, it wasn’t a mistake. I really meant to push him in. But I wasn’t supposed to save him. That was Bingo Little!”

“Who?”

“Bingo Little. Tutored your brother for a while.” Now Honoria remembered. Little, the weird one who kept sighing every time she walked by. “He told me that he worshipped the ground you walked on. Of course it didn’t last because he’s married to Rosie M. Banks now, only she calls herself Rose Little when she’s not writing, and they’re very happy. But before he met her, he used to fall in love with every filly who crossed his path, and you were one of them. So to win your undying devotion, we had a plan that I’d push Oswald in the pond, and he’d jump in and save him. Then you’d be so impressed, you’d declare your u.d. Only he never showed up because he met your friend, so I had to jump in instead.”

Honoria thought she had never heard of such a ridiculous plan. “But you had told me that there was someone who…”

“Someone who loved you, yes. That was Bingo.”

“But my mother told me you were keen!”

“ _I_ never told your mother I was keen! I told the opposite to Aunt Agatha, and it was her bally idea for us to get married. Thought I needed someone who would mold me.”

Letting her arm slip away from Bertie’s, Honoria took a few steps away from him. “Then, every time I thought about marrying you, when I thought you wanted to marry me, when I told you I would marry you…”

“It was all a misunderstanding, old thing.”

Honoria sank down on one of the park benches, not caring about the lingering rainwater soaking into the back of her coat. Everything seemed clearer now. The way Bertie’s face paled when he saw her, how he kept trying to push her into other men’s arms. And she had leapt to conclusions, not stepping back and thinking things through rationally even when the facts were staring her plainly in the face. “Well I’ve been an ass.”

“Oh no, Honoria, I wouldn’t say—”

“And you have too!” Bertie’s mouth snapped shut. She gripped Bertie’s sleeve and tugged him down. He collapsed on the bench in a gangle of flailing limbs.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“You can’t just tell a girl who thinks you’re in love with her that you aren’t. It wouldn’t be _preux_. It’s against the Code of the Woosters.”

Honoria frowned. “The what?”

“The Code of the Woosters.”

“I’ve never heard of it, and Lady Worplesdon has never mentioned it.”

“Oh.” Bertie looked surprised, as if he assumed every family had some sort of outdated chivalric code. “Well, maybe it’s something only the men know about.”

“Or just the sweet naïve ones whose morals are stuck in the Middle Ages,” she thought.

“Bertie, if you aren’t in love with a girl, tell her. We can take it. You won’t break our hearts. We might hate you for a while, but you won’t break our hearts.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “I had never thought about it like that. I suppose someone ought to make an addition to the Code then. It would certainly keep us from looking like a bunch of fools.”

“You’re not a fool. Actually, you are,” she quickly corrected herself. “But you try, and that counts for a lot.”

“I’ve been called worse, and by my nearest and dearest, so I’ll take that.”

Honoria sighed. She tried to live life to minimize regrets, but one thing she hated was missed opportunities. The sense that something great lay in front of her, but she was too distracted to grasp it. She had that feeling now, thinking of the fun she and Bertie could have been having if she hadn’t been convinced that he wanted to marry her and he desperate to avoid matrimony. “All this time, we could have been friends.”

“We can still be friends, Honoria. That is, if Eggleston won’t get jealous if I occasionally take you to lunch while he’s knee-deep writing the next bestseller. He’ll know it’s only out of the goodness of friendship?”

“He’ll know.” Honoria would make sure Blair understood. Besides, it was good to give him a little space during the long days of revising and editing.

A question lingered in her mind. Bertie may not have wanted to marry her or any fairy queens, but the idea of him alone seemed so wrong. He needed someone in his life, if only to make sure he was looked after. “Do you have anyone, Bertie?” She chuckled. “Because Florence Craye—”

“No!” Bertie exclaimed. “I-I mean, Florence is a wonderful girl for the chap who likes _Types of Ethical Theory_ for light bedtime reading.”

“Oh.” That explained a lot. “Well, Madeline Basset…” The pale, horrified expression on Bertie’s face nearly made her double over with laughter despite herself. At least she was not alone. After a moment, Bertie relaxed and began laughing with her. Honoria would never understand the way his mind worked, but maybe that was for the best. Even the most expert hands found some clay impossible to mold. But, leaning back against the park bench, Honoria wondered if Lady Worplesdon’s fears and complaints about Bertie were unwarranted. True, he was a lazy creature and drifted in and out of trouble like a falling autumn leaf, but he had a good and generous heart.

As their laughter died down, Bertie caught sight of something in the distance. His eyes lit up. “I say, Honoria, I hate leaving you right now, but…”

“You need to go,” Honoria finished for him. “Off you trot then.” She rose to kiss his cheek. Bertie paused.

“You are getting married next month, right?”

Honoria smacked his arm, sending him stumbling back a foot. “Yes, and I expect to see you there! Sitting in the pews, not standing at the altar.”

“I’ll be there. With bells on.”

Just as he turned to leave, Honoria grabbed his wrist. “You didn’t answer my question earlier. You do have someone, don’t you, Bertie?”

The shock on Bertie’s face softened into a gentle smile. “Yes, I do, old thing. You needn’t worry about that.”

Chin in hand, she watched him as he strolled out of the park. What a funny creature Bertie was. It was truly no wonder why her father liked him so much. Once she had returned home to hear Bertie and Daddy talking in his study. Honoria did not eavesdrop, but she had heard bits and pieces of conversation, including Daddy talking about “Nature’s bachelors.” She had thought nothing of it at the time, but now she wondered if Daddy had been talking about Bertie. He always was more comfortable with his friends than any women, yet now that things were plain between them, he had opened up completely. Gone was the shy awkwardness. It reminded her a little of herself when she was still with Daphne. While they were together, Honoria had tried to avoid many interactions with men lest they get the wrong idea (which they always seemed prone to do). Of course after she and Daphne amicably broke things off (how anyone could prefer golf to hunting and riding Honoria would never know), it didn’t matter. Lady Worplesdon would not like that Bertie had already picked someone behind her back, but he seemed happy. She only hoped that the person Bertie had chosen was up to the task.

Across the park, on the other side of the street, she could still see him, the light gray of his suit somehow standing out against the still-damp muted shades of the buildings around him. He was waving and walking briskly towards his man Jeeves. From her distance, Honoria could not see Bertie’s face, but something about his movements, more comfortable than he had ever been with her, reminded her of the way Blair eased whenever she entered the room. Even Jeeves, who carried himself reservedly, seemed more relaxed speaking with his master than befitted a valet. Honoria had not liked Jeeves when she first met him; he seemed sneaky and imperious, like he wanted to be superior to his betters. But Hildebrand swore by him, and Daddy also frequently sung his praises.

Jeeves purchased a small rosebud from a flower seller and tucked into Bertie’s lapel. They strolled off, a respectable distance between them, Bertie occasionally glancing at Jeeves.  Honoria watched them together, her curiosity rising.

“I wonder…”

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine Blair Eggleston as bearded Chris Evans. He looks like the type of guy to write high-minded serious novels about Man struggling against The Machine.
> 
> Lady Glossop never shows up in the stories, and in the tv series, she inexplicably runs off with a bus driver prior to "Bridegroom Wanted." But she's so silly and fun, I'm keeping her married to Sir Roderick.


End file.
